Buck Harvey: Uh-oh, Z-Bo – a shot that can tilt a series

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tim Duncan sagged as he sat down on a folding chair in the corner of the locker room.

Just as the Phoenix Suns once sagged.

Duncan had left Zach Randolph behind the 3-point line, just as the Suns had once left Duncan in the first round of another playoff series. And just as Duncan once stunned Shaq and the Suns, Z-Bo stunned Duncan and the Spurs.

The same moment the Spurs once celebrated should scare them now.

Isn’t this how everything can be lost?

The other day in San Antonio, after a Grizzlies practice at the AT&T Center, Damon Stoudamire was sitting courtside remembering his brief time as a Spur. He’s now on the Memphis staff, but he was there in 2008, sleeping on the plane in New Orleans before later losing to the Lakers.

He was also there for the opener against the Suns. Then, Duncan’s first three of the season sent the game to double overtime, where the Spurs eventually won. The Suns, deflated ? after a missed opportunity, never recovered.

Stoudamire said he remembered that shot so clearly that, in the opener of this series, he had a flashback. Last weekend, with the Spurs behind by three in the closing seconds, Duncan set up as if he was going to shoot a three, before passing to Richard Jefferson.

“Man,” Stoudamire said, “I thought I was going to see it from the other side.”

As it turned out, he had to wait a few days. He also had to wait through 47 minutes of grinding playoff basketball on Saturday night.

“That’s the way we like to play,” Lionel Hollins said, and that said a lot about how the Spurs have switched roles. There was a time when the Spurs were the ones who slowed high-scoring teams in the postseason. Now, the Grizzlies are doing that to them.

Still, the Spurs have battled through their sloppiness, and they did in the opener, too. Shane Battier’s 3-pointer was the difference.

At least that one made sense. Battier is a 39-percent shooter from that range.

What happened Saturday was something else entirely. Then, with the shot clock running down, Duncan stayed in place while Randolph tossed in a 26-footer.

“That’s the shot I work on every day,” Randolph said afterward, and George Hill seconded that. Hill said he’d seen Randolph make hundreds during Indiana summers.

But practice and the offseason aren’t the same. Randolph made less than 19 percent of his threes this season, and he’s under 28 percent for his career.

Just as the Spurs had chances after the Battier three in the opener, they had another after Randolph. What has plagued the Spurs for so much of this series, however, plagued them then, too.

“We’re not reacting as well as we usually do,” Duncan said, and they didn’t then. Gregg Popovich took the blame for not calling time, and Manu Ginobili admitted he thought he had more time.

Still, without Randolph’s three, the Spurs would have had the ball down by only two points, and the Grizzlies were looking nervous. They had scored only one basket in almost five minutes.

But the shot fell, and within minutes, Randolph was doing what he calls his “win-win dance.”

It felt like lose-lose to the Spurs. They can still take the series; they aren’t the Suns. But they have to come through in Memphis for that to happen, and how many better chances will they get?

Duncan’s move to the folding chair was the opposite dance. His team had led the NBA in 3-point shooting, yet had gone 2 of 15 on Saturday. Memphis was 27th in the league, yet won with Randolph’s three.